All Things
by Atheniandream
Summary: 7.16 FINALE Add-On. It is the end, and yet still the start. *Goodbye for Mike & Rach* CHAPTER FOUR NOW UP
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Notes: You deserved a full goodbye. To Mike & Rachel Ross. May you forever live in the world of 'Suits'. This is an add-on, but I might have another Chapter in me. Right now, I'm still crying over Mike Ross and thinking of Harvey looking at Donna like 'that'..._

. . ...

 **All Things**

By Atheniandream

. . ...

 _I wanna be older, I wanna be stronger_

 _I don't wanna fall at the start_

 _I wanna be quicker, I wanna get closer_

 _Don't wanna feel worlds apart_

 _It's all a fickle game_

 _Life's a fickle game we play_

 _. . ._

Donna Paulsen had pulled the entire ceremony out of her ass, to as good a standard as she could have ever hoped for.

But bigger things were happening, beyond the blissful union of two young lovers.

She had watched Mike with Harvey, every second ticking by as she witnessed the blood drain slowly from Harvey's tired face. Suddenly life-altered in state as he was confronted with such a sudden snap of a shift.

Another in his life. In _their_ life.

Harvey Specter was losing _a Partner. A Best Friend. And a fantastic Lawyer._

But he wasn't the only one losing someone today.

Rachel Zane would no longer be 'just down the hall'. She would no longer be there to chat, or to drink with, or to chew over her latest issue in her somewhat lacking love life. She wanted everything for her friend, but it didn't quash the streak of raw emotion to claw at her since Rachel had uttered those words.

´ _We are starting our lives in Seattle.'_

 _Seattle was on the other side of the country._ And this wasn't _Sleepless..._

Neither would she or Harvey have their best friends nudging them from both sides - sometimes making a meal of their complicated past, and even more complicated future. In turn, no longer would they be there to watch out for them, or to live in their day to day, like surrogate parents and points of ordained countenance in their shining futures as singular people and as a couple.

When he had lingered by the bar, she had pulled him away from his dark corners and into the light, knowing that he craved a distraction, despite their tenuous place in one another's lives. He had asked her to dance. Suddenly dancing seemed the easiest thing, compared to all the rest.

So they dance, _really dance_ , and he twirls her about the dance floor as if she is becoming a physical part of him. Their fingers intertwine, and their eyes lock in places and they laugh amongst the beautiful romanticism of the moment, for what it is. No more, for now, whilst new wounds are fresh and cuts are deep. And it's a release for them both, to act like children and have the kind of fun that has been lost to them lately. They tire themselves until their pace slows, drawing themselves together then and not apart, their heartbeats syncing and their bodies drifting amongst a hyper sensitive sea of slowly moving pairs.

She doesn't know if he will ever be brave with her.

Or whether she'll truly figure out just **_how_ **he loves her.

And within this changing climate of this current point in space and time she can only rest against hunches and looks and the very few, but rather important words that he has for her and her alone.

As he turns her in his arms, her head lolling towards his shoulder, the twinkly lights above them casting an enchanted glimmer to shine across the room, she feels that shift; her eyes flicking to the happy couple, one of two that she knows in the room. Louis and Sheila are happy. Glowing, almost, under the warmth of such a romantic evening.

 _It seems like all couples have their happy ending...almost..._

But for once, she is content to just be...his.

She sheds a pit in her stomach at the feeling of Harvey, usually so strong and solid, now ambiguously unsure and almost broken against her, coming down from a high she encouraged. He thinks he's hiding it so well under the cover of a gentle smile and the comfort of their family around them. But she can almost sense it in him, the way his hand sweats a little and his chest sags against the closure of her arm.

His mind is turning over the night.

 _Their family is changing._

Not splintering, as such, but bidding one another safe journey as they embark on their own personal quests, in different directions across their vast country.

They will be back one day. She's sure of it.

And on that day,

It will be like it always has.

But _for now_ , they are in bed with Robert Zane.

And Harvey has another hurdle to fight, and all without his partner in crime this time.

 _Without either of them..._

She thinks on Jessica, and the small pieces of information that Harvey had told her about her struggles in a stranger city.

It saddens her, _the idea of a woman like Jessica Pearson with her back against the wall_. After everything she has ever accomplished. To be back on the line of things, feels unjust. Out of the balance of things.

It seems, she...Donna...is Harvey's only weapon now.

What they mean to one another is suddenly dwarfed by the every single shred of change around them, spinning about them along with the walls, the floor and the ceiling, all encased around this temporarily celebration of a moment, leaving them standing rather sharply at the edges of a world that they barely control.

 _For Now._

When his cheek falls away from hers, his eyes glancing into hazel, she feels every sting of pain, every loss and every almost win. His eyeline falters, a glassiness flashing in their shadowed depths. She squeezes his hand instinctively, straightening out of their relaxed embrace, nodding minutely, just enough for him to catch it and follow suit. Only then does his jaw set, more confident then, less drenched in sorrow, her action suddenly all he needs to knit together the meaning in her eyes. She watches as he releases a breath, slow and steady.

Something changes from within him, then.

Something hidden, suddenly breaking free.

Something she may have encouraged, but is somehow breathing life of it's very own without her aid.

The fingers that he holds her hand with slide in between hers, as the hand around her waist tightens around her, as he gradually leans into her, passing through her personal space. She feels his breath against her ear, causing a shiver to strike where his cheek had been for the past song or two.

She braces herself, her heart beat quickening as she holds her breath.

" _You look beautiful_ , by the way." He mumbles, low enough that no one else but her could ever catch it.

Her eyebrow quirks, the only a reaction she isn't fast enough to temper, as she looks out into the circling couples dancing all around her. She sighs, more to rid herself of the way his words pull at her, in feeling that slight blush creep up her skin to meet the place where their chests now touch, and that her dress can conceal.

She spots Mike steal a glance at them, noticing the action with a look of interest and humour as Harvey's cheek slides back against hers. She nearly chokes on her long distance glare until Harvey pulls away, looking at her with interest.

"You okay?" He asks, frowning.

 _She can spot the veil of confidence slip at her suspended reaction._

"Yeah. It's nothing." She says, leaning slightly against him, to cover his confusion. "Just Mike,"

She hears him chuckle, sighing heavily. " _That god damned kid_." He reams off, the flood of emotion pulling at his vocal chords as he shakes his head slightly against her hair.

They ride the beat of silence between them, as they drift on the spot.

" _They won't be far_ , Harvey." She promises him, thinking on the sheer distance. Despite her assuredness.

" _I know_." He says, a little too quickly, his mouth shutting in a clench of teeth as he holds her steady against his control of the rhythm.

. . ...

 _Cause I'm fast enough to get in trouble, and not fast enough to get away_  
 _I'm old enough to know I'll end up dying_  
 _And not young enough to forget again..._

. .. ...

 **They dance until Mike and Rachel leave.**

She's not sure how they had managed to stay locked in one position for so long, like two orbiting moons, or fireflies dancing beside a planet and in perfect sync with the sun. Part of a much wider, bigger picture, but no less whole, together.

They are broken up by Rachel and Mike prospectively, goodbyes jovial and hopeful and seemingly fleeting.

Rachel's eyes flick to Donna, as she offers the warmest of smiles, pulling Donna to the side.

" _My Maid of Honor_." Rachel grins, her voice bending with heavy sentiment.

" _Mrs Ross_ ," Donna chimes, watching as the lawyer's eyes fill with tears then, her cute pixie nose twitching as the redhead pulls her into a hug, rocking them slightly. "I'm so proud of you... _Michelle_." She says, tension riding the humour in her voice.

"Thank you, Harriet Specter," Rachel breathes, as they pull apart, teary eyed and laughing softly at names that somehow forever changed them.

She ignores the impulse to glance at Harvey in that moment, hoping Mike has stolen his attentions away.

"I'll call when we're all set up and then you can come visit, okay?" Rachel promises.

"Just enjoy your Honeymoon, first, Rachel." She says, giving her friend a meaningful and rather mothering look.

 _It's about time that Rachel Ross nee Zane learnt to enjoy her life._

"I love you _so_ much." Rachel says, giving her hand one last squeeze.

"I love you too, sweetie. Have a fabulous time, okay?" She says, stealing a breath that hurts with the most perfect bittersweetness.

She watches as Rachel smiles, moving to her Mother, nearby.

She stills the flood of emotion that threatens to break free. She reminds herself.

Today is theirs, not hers.

 _But she's so proud..._

. . . ...

Mike is electric, on his best possible day, Harvey thinks, as he clasps his friends shoulder.

 _This kid has won it all, and then some..._

He tries not to get agitated, when Mike's attention shifts. _He knows that shift._ It's the nearly the same thing that Donna does, except more annoying because this guy is his little brother, and that twinge of something else isn't there like it is with her.

"Mike," He tempers, his head tilting as he gives him a look, them half folded in the kind of embrace that he figures out quickly, has a very strict purpose to it.

Mike looks squarely at him, their faces close enough to give them the perfect intimacy in their brotherly moment.

"You _and_ ,"

" _Mike_ ,"

" _I mean it_ , Harvey. Take the risk." He says, his eyes like crystal pools and no less pure of intention, as the man's hand squeezes Harvey's shoulder. "Trust me. She's worth it."

Harvey shakes his head, pulling away slightly from his held shock at the young man's words.

 _He'll never let up. Not until his last dying breath._

 _Annoying._

 _Persistent._

 _Observant._

 _A veritable pain in the ass._

One of a kind.

Unforgettable.

"Just enjoy your Goddamned Honeymoon." He says, mock annoyance on his face, that Mike laughs at almost immediately.

And that's it. His last lecture about his heart, from Mike _God Damned_ Ross.

"I'll be sure to Skype you from the Bahamas." Mike offers, a smug smile on his face.

"Let's hope you don't tan your ass red raw, out there." Harvey quips, laying the bait.

"See, why do you have to do that?" Mike offers, looking woundedly at his friend. "Why do you have to be like that?"

He smiles then, tooth laden and restrained of all the love that he has ever had for this young man, as Mike slaps him on the shoulder.

" _Get outta here_." Harvey says in his way, watching his best friend rip away his gaze then, to carefully gather his blushing bride.

He looks to Donna, who's gravitated to right beside him, finally shedding a tear or two in the comfort of his presence. He takes her right hand in his left one, their fingers mingling without a thought, as he too begins to feel the release of all their journeys combining as one.

They are moving forward. Into whatever his life will turn out to be, he jjust hopes she'll always be there, standing beside him.

His hand squeezes hers, levelling out the nearly visible choke in her rarely troubled breath.

"You okay?" He offers, looking down at her.

She nods, her eyes meeting his for the briefest of moments, as she sniffs back the sentiment, glancing back out to their friends and the growing crowd that shapes around them.

He has a million words for her floating around his head as he watches her for a second. Red and Back and momentarily Blue.

But only one question lingers on his lips.

And for right now,

Their best friends in the entire world just got married. To one another, no less.

And she's right. _Like always._

 _His one constant above a shifting world within worlds._

They _will both_ see them again.

It is the end, and yet still the start,

Of all things.

. . ...


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Notes:** Thanks for reviewing guys, you're awesome. I realised that I needed to write more Mike and Rachel, as well as Harvey and Donna. I may flesh out the Chapter 1 a bit, to add a segment, but I'll post in author's notes if I do.

. . ….

 ** _Chapter 2_**

. . ….

After everything that has happened to him over the past few years, the shaky rollercoaster ride into the worst and best possible situations that could have been birthed from a suitcase full of weed and an escape into a wrong turn, Mike Ross has now truly hit the jackpot.

He got married today, to the literal love of his life; a woman, who from the moment they met, completely orbited his world with grace, charm and understanding. She had been the first person he saw at the beginning of his journey, and chosen last and only person he ever wished to carry forward with him to the end.

He was _Goldrush_ kind of lucky, these days. And luckier still than most around him. The streak wasn't lost on him, coming from such dismal beginnings and unlucky circumstances to turn like the head of a dime.

He had worked hard and suffered long. And now was the time to finally enjoy it all.

After their upcoming honeymoon, a chance to relax and enjoy one another fully after so long a winding road, they would then start on their newest journey, as a married couple, in a very different city, heading a firm _by themselves_ , and doing something that they both loved.

 _Fighting for those that could not._

This would be a new era for them.

Together. A unit. A team. In every way that he had been taught, counts.

There is a part of him, though, that feels left behind. In the eyes of his friends. In their offices, that they've left, now empty. In their apartment, a home _now away_ from a newer one, in a city that is just as rough as it had been kind.

He regrets having to tell Harvey in a rush. It was too big of an announcement to plant on the guy hours before their departure, but timing just hadn't been with him. He could see the blanket disappointment in the man's eyes, and he too felt the pressure of the decision. The guilt, at being offered Senior Partner, and having to turn the man down.

In Harvey Specter's eyes _he_ , Mike Ross, had finally been worthy of being a real Lawyer, and now he was accidentally throwing it in the face of the one person that had taught him how to be his authentic professional self.

But the law that Specter Litt focused on was not where his passion lay, no matter how much the place was his home. Their Home.

 _So,_

 _It was time for Harvey Specter to let his protege go out into the world to find and fight his own battles. To put his mark in the dirt, and see it stick._

But he knew Harvey, almost completely, and Harvey Specter didn't like people leaving him, no matter how innocent a gesture it was. It always cut him harsh and too deep.

He was glad that Donna had found him soon after delivering the news. Both himself and Donna would forever be the dual catalysts, to keep a man like Harvey moving sleekly through the world. Because he wasn't as strong as he played at work. Inside, he was fragile, and bruised, and a glutton for his own personal demise.

Harvey had always accused Mike of being a sucker, of being soft. But he knew differently.

He was free. In passion and of restraint. He may not have locked heads like Harvey did, been the kind of shark that made him infamous, but Mike didn't need to be that. he didn't need to be him. He was his own man, and stronger for it.

Mike Ross was about truth and stability and the helping the underdog, just like he had been.

The only person that could really break a man like Harvey Specter, was the woman beside him. And that was all he needed. And whenever he breaks, again, no doubt she'll pick him up and put him back together, no matter how many times it happens.

A frown sets into his brow, thinking on the real fixer, Donna Roberta Paulsen. He had joked not so long ago, about having to stop Harvey fucking her at his wedding. He believed in his heart of hearts that it would have happened, too, under different circumstances.

But their wedding hadn't been the thing it was meant to be. It was a bittersweet celebration for everyone besides the bride and bridegroom, and now, what lingered was a ripe sense of loss, for the ones that they would both be leaving behind. Those who would inevitably continue to fight the same old battles, with the same recurring foes, but now without the understudies that they had invested their time in. It polarised the sense of gain that he now felt, at these glimmering opportunities waiting for them both in Seattle. Another pang of guilt flooded his veins at the fact that none of them would have them at their disposal.

Harvey and Donna, more so, than Louis.

Harvey and Donna were something else.

And it had taken Mike Ross to learn, that although his two best friends could have what he and Rachel had, when it came down to their roots, Harvey Specter and Donna Paulsen were not so like he and Rachel.

The Lawyer and COO, had been so many things, for so much of their long life together, that in some ways they were more than and yet so much less.

They were less brave with one another, desperately holding onto rather than happily having. _On the brink of saving one another rather than enjoying just being together._ They were both far more broken than he or Rachel had ever found themselves. Even with his past and his parents and _Grammy_.

Even Louis Litt had managed to break through his own complicated personal setbacks, but Harvey and Donna?

He knows, deep inside his core, that his two friends truly do have the ability to make one another completely, perhaps even blissfully happy.

They had slept together, once. Harvey had pursued Donna, even. Which means that they absolutely have the capacity to have that kind of 'more'.

Essentially, it took one simple kiss from Donna to pull them back together, enough to at least be something of what they were before.

 _But, they were on their own now…_

He could do no more than he had done before.

No matter how much he wanted to intervene and crack their heads together like a Mother Hen with all the business.

The thought occupies his mind, more so than he thinks it should on this particular night. When instead he should be lavishing in a giddy sense of romanctic intention with the beautiful woman beside them. But she'd understand. Because Harvey and Donna are as close to family, for him, as two individual people can ever get, or marriage can ever invoke. _Parents. Mentors. Best Friends. Equals._ One for work and one for home like Mother and Father and Husband and Wife. Yet, beyond their wisdom, and their experience of the world, he's watched Harvey break clean in two at the thought of losing Donna, and Donna fight tooth and nail to remain beside Harvey, and both struggle with feeling that they've buried under a decade of patchwork history. All he wants is for them to act on feelings that he knows are there. That he's seen as plain as daylight through an open window.

He thinks of tonight, of seeing Harvey spin them both in circles and Donna act the fool just to ease his sorrow, and make him laugh, pulling him into the light and closer into her and watch as they had drifted into an embrace that you would never attribute to as less than lovers and soulmates. To see them merge into a temporary happiness, and whole again, together, as the interlocking pairs that they unknowingly present as themselves to the world.

He understands with a quiet dignity, that after tonight especially, after all that's changed and will change for his friends, that it's not going to just happen overnight. Harvey is most likely still in turmoil, and Donna will be tentative and considerate in her affections, and not push his will past a point that he can process.

He feels his wife's hand slide into his, as they ride their cab to the airport, baggage in the trunk and no care about them. He realises he's been thinking a little too deeply, when her expression dents, sensing his internalisation.

"Mike? _Are you there_?" She asks, a softness making the deep notes in her voice run like velvet against the flash of humour in her eyes.

He sighs wistfully, bending to plant his lips against hers, full and soft and comforting to him. He squeezes her hand as he pulls away to face her, looking through rather tired blue eyes.

"I'm just...thinking about Harvey and Donna." He explains.

Anyone else, would judge him for the admission. On this night of all nights, when he should be focused on them. but they weren't that kind of couple.

" _You're not the only one_ ," She sighs, an oblique sadness in her tone. "...I just don't get it. Why they can't just…"

"Fall into bed?" He offers with a smirk.

She smiles at her husband's insinuation. " _Not just that._ To... _try_ to be together. To have what we have." She reasons, a frown forming. "Do you think that they just aren't... _meant_ to be that?"

"No," He says deftly. "I think that they are...ridiculously in love, and terrified shitless of it feeling right, in case, for some reason - unknown to all of us - it ends up being wrong."

"I always put it all down to Harvey _but_ -" Rachel frowns.

"No. It's Donna. _I'm sure._ "

She looks at him funny for a second, gauging the information that he lays on the table.

"Why, though?" She asks him.

"Could you risk loving a man like Harvey Specter, and feel confident that he wouldn't take you for granted somewhere down the line?"

She chuckles then, a bitter truth in Mike's deduction, as her fingers loosen out of his hold to wrap her arm neatly around his.

"I guess you're right." She reasons. "But what worries me, is...if they can't be apart, and refuse to be together, **_then what_**?"

"Only they know the answer to that, I guess." He tells her.

She sighs, her face a touch resistant to the fact, before she finally concedes and lays her head on his shoulder, her almond shaped eyes glancing into the sideways view of moving traffic and blurring car lights.

"I know one thing, though." He says, rousing her from the comfortable silence.

"Oh yeah?" She says, smiling to herself.

"I'm glad we...are... _past that point_."

"Me too." She says, her head raising to meet his eyes. "I love you, Mike Ross." She says, her eyes sparkling in the partial light of the backseat of the cab.

"I love you, too, Rachel Zane." He tells her.

" _Rachel Ross_ ," She corrects, with a grin.

"Rachel Ross it is," He smirks, placing his head against hers as the lull of sleep pulls them close.

. . …

Harvey had insisted that he take Donna home, even though her apartment was across town and nowhere near his.

For once, she doesn't refuse him, or make excuses, or just slip off into the night without a word.

He's still hurting, but for once she understands the hurt firsthand. But unlike many of the times before it, she sees no real solution to their problem.

Mike is gone, in so many ways. Rachel with him.

Harvey is dealing with the news rather well, for someone who took it very badly, at first.

He is quiet in the cab, with their recent time together they are back to comfortable silences. She is slightly drunk, and extremely tired, after the amount of work it took to orchestrate a last minute wedding of a regardable standard. She's proud of herself, and no matter how much their departure saddens her personally and professionally, she's going to do her very best to delve into the pits of denial and pretend that the couple are on their honeymoon, until the firm can adequately distract them otherwise - _and she's of no doubt that it will, sooner rather than later._

 _The firm, no matter the name, or controlling interest had a way of swallowing them both up whole and spitting them out in pieces._

She had told Harvey that she had loved her job, and she does.

But it is now being stripped of the people that made it perfect, and that is a tough pill to swallow in a day.

She feels a clench in her gut, the overwhelming feeling of the night taking over. She swallows, stiling a breath as she looks out of her side of the cab.

" _ **You okay**_?"

She hears his distinct drawl, as she visibly straightens, her eyes widening in a cover of almost jubilance.

"What?" She replies, feigning the emotion flat out.

 _Just because she's dealt with his hurt tonight, doesn't mean that she wants to fall headlong into her own..._

His head lolls, like it does, like it has done a thousand times, challenging her with those eyes that have the ability to chart a million different strands of emotion in just one pointed look.

" _Donna_ ," He says, the colour giving her name so much more meaning than anyone else has ever dared bestow upon it.

"Harvey." She counters, just as heavy, just as ambiguous in nature.

His hand slides along the space between them, and travels slowly under hers, fusing their palms together.

She hitches a silent breath at his action, so smooth and practised over the course of the night and so seemingly easy a gesture that for a second she wonders if he is seeing someone else when he looks to her. If he is repeating recent habits that were born out of other people.

"Out with it." He demands, his tone flattening.

"Is this you, offering to talk about your feelings?" She remarks colourfully, her expression carefully guarded.

His eyes flash a look, then. " _No_ ," He says, narrowing his eyes at her. "This is me offering for _you_ , to talk about _your_ feelings."

"Harvey." She says, feeling as though she is fighting a losing battle.

" _Come on_ ," He encourages, his features sharpening just to deliberately dial up the pressure.

"I'm...I'm just...going to miss them, okay?" She says in a rush, her eyes widening as she feels the swell of emotion fill her. "I've spent all night trying to make _**you**_ forget, that I only just remembered how _I_ feel." She half-accuses, that fussiness that makes her so unique as she tries to shrug the emotion clean off of herself, like shedding a skin too early.

She glances at him, watching the beat that passes as the cogs visibly turn over in his mind.

"Well…" He says, quietly, his hand solidifying around hers. "What can we do to...make you forget about it?" He asks, his approach delicate enough to arouse her suspicions.

The look she gives him would have been potent, if he hadn't thrown it right back at her.

She laughs then, a sputter of nervousness that not even she herself could claim, before she gathers herself together, all pomp and circumstance and reigned in entertainment turned to accusation at his minds keen deduction.

"We said we'd never talk about that night." She warns.

" _You're_ the one who always brings it up." He points out, the accusation paper thin.

Her eyes bore into his, that familiar twitch of flirtation that they used to have before things got so heavy.

Suddenly she feels herself falling into a full stop. Blunt. Objectionless. Immovable.

"Harvey, _I'm not_ -"

" _In love with me, right_?" He finishes for her, as his hand slackens around hers in a preemption of her answer.

She feels that cloying taste in her mouth, and the unmistakable lump in her throat, tightening the ability to breathe as his eyes judge her suspended expression.

He's putting her on the spot. And she's not ready.

"I'm not sure that.. _.this_ is...the time for us to have this particular conversation." She manages evenly.

"Because you didn't feel anything? _When you kissed me_?" He deduces, firing the words with none of his usual intention.

" _Harvey_ ," Her heart sinks in the worst possible way.

"Why can't you just answer **_one_** question that I ask?" He says, half to himself, his hand leaving hers then.

She hates the way that it feels for him to hold her and then stop. It gives him more control over her than she's comfortable with.

"Because… tonight, we both lost two of the most _important people_ in our lives, save for one another. And you _just_ broke up with Paula...and right now... _it's just_ …"

"Okay." He says, his tone bending.

"What?" She frowns, missing the intention in his eyes.

"You're right." He says staunchly, shrugging.

But it's the way his eyes sharpen at her, all affection seeping out of them and crinkling around the outsides.

She knows that now, he's pissed, and shutting down, at the worst possible time, when her heart is beating and she's at odds with herself. "Harvey," She tries to placate, folding her arms against her chest at his refusal to meet her eyes. " _Harvey_?" She repeats, irked now.

He continues to look out of the window, his right hand tapping on the edge of the cars frame.

If he wasn't making her rapidly more annoyed by his palpable silence with every passing second, she'd think that the mere picture of him was rather beautiful, the soft blue lighting of the full moon dancing across his sharp features, making him stoic and statueesuqe. That lion-like self pride - born out of stubbornness more than anything - with which he sits, his back against the worn leather backrest, with his chest puffed out and his tux making him look rather imposing; predatory almost, beyond the limits that she can handle tonight.

 _He's not the only one with baggage. With things that they are unable to let go of..._

"I'm...I'm scared, _okay_?" She offers, wholly exasperated by how his demeanour pulls at her veil-thin resolve. "There, _I said it_." She flaps her arms defensively at the admission.

They sit in a kind of pocket of honesty for so long that it terrifies her.

The entire night has been a rush of uncharted moments between them and surrounding them and threatening to pull them clean under. And she's too tired now, to temper every single one.

"...Me too." She hears him say, just a touch under his usual volume. She closes her eyes just to catch the wave of emotion coursing around them, alight with promise and yet a thousand possibilities, all grey toned in the almost dark.

"I don't want to lose you." She admits, stealing a breath in the words, something harsh and high in the back of her throat. A memory of a conversation that seems so long ago...

"You can't… Donna...not _ever_." He promises, darkly, clenching at the sentiment in his voice.

They draw a matching breath, audible amongst the hum of the moving engine as their eyes train forward into the cab. She sits, feeling them drift into a complicated silence.

The cab stills then, her building, familiar to both parties creeping along the left side of the car, like a welcome intermission.

She turns to him then, a heaviness in her heart that he only half encourages. He looks like a little boy caught apart from his mother at a state fayre. Eyes wide and a fear riding him like a horse shooting out of the gate.

 _She wonders then if she was wrong, to lie to him like she had._

 ** _~ And the freedom of falling_**

 ** _And the feeling I thought was set in stone_**

 ** _It slips through my fingers_**

 ** _And I'm trying hard to let go_**

 ** _But it comes and goes in waves_**

 ** _'Cause it comes and goes in waves_**

 ** _And carries us away ~_**

It causes a shift inside her. An impulse to repeat itself. _One she swore she'd never do to him_ _ever __again_ _._ Flippant and foolish and full of fire, she leans over the short space between them, long and elegant with pale skin against black, her red hair pouring down one side of her face like a shadow holding a firelight, her right hand snaking up each of the muscles on his left arm, passing the shoulder and wrapping around his nape, her fingers scratching at his neck with a need to remind him, more so than she had before. She succeeds, and it reignites him into a reaction, as he leans in, suddenly energised and acting rather unlike the last time, almost welcoming the contact, as his lips slide against hers, his hands now worn into where they had settled at her waist for literal hours earlier. She moans, a whimper flattening against him at the initial contact, her lips comforted by his, their whiskey tinge and oddly alluring warmth. When she feels his tongue slip boldly into her mouth, and his fingers grasp desperately to hold her in place, she knows they've gone too far, but suddenly she's the swell and rush and the torrid between them and he is hard and solid like a coastal defense, and she's glued to the feeling of him taking in every single inch of her with gusto.

 ** _~Cause I'm fast enough to get in trouble, and not fast enough to get away~_**

 _This was what she had been looking for._

 _But the timing...is…_

She suppresses her own rising reaction when she hears him groan, something earthy and guttural and moment shattering. Her hands slide up to his face, pulling them apart in a way that has his lips smacking with a pop.

His eyes snap open, and in a flash he looks more openly resentful of her than she's ever seen of him close up.

She doesn't need words, it seems, as his hands drop completely of his hold on her, a heavy, restricted sigh falling out of him, as he finally relents, his face still suspended in her rather tenuous touch.

The look in his eyes makes her heart ache, as she closes the distance one last time, placing a careful kiss against him. Something brief, but enough to break down the tension building in him.

"Goodnight Harvey." She whispers between them, avoiding how he looks at her and dropping her hands in a rush, as she exits the cab in one fluid motion, dashing from dark into the lamp light of the sidewalk's many street lamps.

She struggles to find her keys, rummaging in her bag, half of her still lost in the cab ride, with the signature taste of him lingering in her mouth, and a paralysing need mutating in her gut. She relaxes, finally, when she spots the keychain, closing her bag shut.

" _ **Donna**_."

She nearly drops her keys, internally berating herself for the complete lack of concentration of in her surroundings. She spins around, double taking his presence, rigid, shoulders set, half drunk and _noticeably pissed_ , standing in front of her, with his hands balled in fists and the cab still waiting awkwardly in the background like a yellow elephant in the room.

" _Harvey_ ," She warns, a tiredness in her eyes and the feeling of the growing quickly cold as the night begins to settle in her bones.

She wrestles with the contradictory look in his eyes, something lying there that could berate her for her actions, but seemingly held back by splintered fear. She spots that alertness, that she knows within herself can't be born out of anything other than a physical need for her, and a reeling resentment of that undeniable fact.

 _She's blind-ass scared._ That _for the first time in their lives_ , he'll really, truly, push things. And that for more than the first time, she's just _not_ ready.

She feels like a little girl, standing in front of an imposing man, wondering what exactly he wants from her, but not really ready for the answer.

"Will I see you. _Tomorrow_?" He asks her.

She softens then, and it all makes sense, every piece of understanding falling into place.

It's always the first thing in his head.

It's happened once tonight, so why not twice.

 _Hell, she's left him so many times..._

"Of course." She frowns softly, fighting the look of pity in her eyes as his gait changes slightly. She takes a step towards him, not enough to broach the distance, but enough to tell him that she's not completely running. "I'm not going anywhere, Harvey." She promises him, watching as the information falls into various frown lines, filling them out into a silent agreement that her heart has pledged to.

He eventually nods, his jaw tightening as his hands fall into his pockets.

"Goodnight Donna," He says curtly.

She watches as he turns, his eyes drifting away from her, as he wanders slowly back to the car.

For a split second, she thinks of keeping him. Of holding him and never once letting him go.

 _But this is Harvey Specter._

The man who holds a suit of cards,

But no happy endings.

 _Only the Joker, making a happy mess of things..._

She doesn't wait for the cab to leave.

Somethings are beyond her emotional pay-grade...

. . ...

Might have another Chapter LMAO. #runawaytrain

. . ...


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Notes:_

Hey guys! Many thanks for the Reviews. Sorry for the delay, it's been a crazzzy week, I had to move my office. Here's a big chapter to make up for it. (Will flip flop back between our favourite couples.)

. . ….

 **Chapter 3**

. . ….

 _ **Tell me this**_

 _ **Does any of this love exist**_

 _ **Or is it just a fire**_

 _ **Keeping out the cold**_

 _ **Fear of the unknown**_

 _ **Turning us to coal**_

 _ **Oh those lips**_

 _ **The heavy way we used to kiss**_

 _ **We'd set the world alight**_

 _ **Live years within a night**_

 _ **And memories never lie**_

 _ **Tell me that I'm right, tell me that I'm right**_

'My Own' By Whitaker

. . ...

 _He should have stayed._

He should have followed her and…

He shakes his head, shutting the thought clean out of his mind, his right fist clenching as emotion holds him. The other slides back into his pants pocket, his jaw tightening as he sinks his back against the wall of polished metal, feeling that grind of a rise as it pulls him towards his floor.

He is tired of the emotions that pull on him, that threaten to drag him under. He knows that he feels too much, and he knows that everyone he cares about has to deal with the push and pull inside of him. No matter how he tries to temper the rush and exceed the fall, the dichotomy within him never lessens. And everybody knows now. That he can be a force of nature when the world is tearing at him. But it doesn't stop the hurt, or tame the sense of sadness to still linger in his heart.

Mike Ross is leaving him. _Leaving them all._ Rachel with him.

Lately, he had been so proud, of Mike finally being able to be a genuine lawyer. To show off his true potential. Of him finally owning something he should have won long ago. Harvey thought that now would be _the time_ to really enjoy it; for the Junior Partner to plant his feet in the ground and begin carving out his own future as the next rising star of New York City's world of law.

And _he_ was, in a way.

Just not in _his_ city. Not in the best city in the world.

He should have known that Mike would follow his own path eventually. And in his own way, he _was_ proud of that. Of the things that he had taught the once Associate, that had helped in filling him out into being the capable lawyer he now was.

But both he and Rach always had that overly honorable streak running through them. That innate need to do good in the world. Lacking the full ability to do the wrong thing, or the necessary thing without feeling a heavy bought of remorse. That fundamental fluidity in their souls, that drove their moral compasses towards good instead of the grey. In the end it has divided them. Mike and Rachel, and then he _and…_

He frowns, deeply, dashing the image of _her_ from his mind, shutting the door behind him and flicking on the lightswitch with a forced absent-mindedness, paying no mind to the change as the entire apartment fills with a golden hue. He crosses his open plan lounge, walking into the bedroom, shrugging off his tuxedo jacket and laying it on the chair next to his bed with a sense of care. He pulls at his black tie, his fingers pulling roughly at the first few buttons on his shirt, relieving himself of the restriction that he has grown so used to over the years.

He rolls up each of his sleeves to the elbow, toeing off his shoes in favour of relieving his slight back ache, and pads back into the lounge.

He longs for one thing above all else right now, and _that_ \- despite a growing headache and a deliberate stubborness to linger on the night - is a glass of scotch.

At home, it's a rarer kind than he has at the office, a limited edition with it's reflective black bottle and neat gold etching. He hadn't bothered to decant this one, having far too much reverence for the design. He pauses again to examine the bottles sense of regality, before his fingers grasp at the cap to pop it open and free it from the bottle, overturning it to lay on the small bar-table, before he pours a vaguely heavy measure - maybe over four fingers or so - of amber whiskey into the tumblr beside it.

He lifts the glass to his lips, dashing half of the measure as it pours down his willingly open throat, the sting heavy, and smoke laden as it warms his insides. He takes but half a beat, before downing the rest of the glass, frowning at the double hit that lays on a night of steady drinking and a less than full stomach. He had been flushed with Macallan over the course of the night - _of course she made it available to him on the bar's menu after such a chaotic flight back to the city_ \- but he hadn't managed to eat much in the hectic schedule of the past few days. He frowns, planting the glass with a weightedness onto the bar-table, picking up the bottle once more, and pulling a more respectable measure into the glass. He wanders over to his couch, dropping onto it with a muffled thud, as his muscles succumb to the very long day.

He leans back, the tumblr cradled in his lap as his head falls back onto the square backrest, the leather welcomingly cool on the nape of his neck. He closes his eyes, sighing deeply as he feels the levelling up in his pre-inebriated state. He takes in the blind feelings of his surroundings.

The last time he remembers sitting on the couch, Paula had been curled up in a blanket, frown laden and ultimatums ready for him after a complicated dinner with his Mother.

He can't help that sting of something unmatured, spiking down the middle of his gut.

He is always at risk of giving her up.

And people are starting to make him chose, now.

 _But he just can't help it. His mind turns over to the thought of her so willingly._

 _He is like a moth to that very constant flame haired woman in his life..._

He tempers a hitch in his throat as he relives the moment, not long passed enough to have been properly buried. Her lips, warm and enticing and flavoured so strangely to his liking, as if she had planned it from the very start. Her short dark trademarked fingernails, scratching down his skin and marking him lightly, like the time before and the time before and _the other time, before that…_

His eyes snap open, his pupils dilating into the night as his brow furrows deeply.

He's only ever kissed her three times. _Not_ four.

 _The second time_...it didn't even exist.

He frowns deeper, caught against his own stupidity.

No matter how hard he remembers every little detail about that moment, her hair, bright and soft to the touch, her lips, vanilla flavoured, from the coffee he had waited for her to make, for what felt like an hour. The way she had swanned in, cool and calm and collected in nothing but his shirt, holding her offering of their ritual. The feel of his dress-shirt, worn by another and brushing against his bare skin and that slightly lazy, contented look in her eyes...it wasn't even real.

None of it.

It had been a dream.

A fucking dream.

 _He really was completely screwed up in the head..._

And it appears...that everyone around knew all along.

 _...Did Donna have anything to do with that complication?..._

… _.And Donna_ _is_ _?..._

 _...Everything okay with you and Donna?..._

 _...maybe there's a part of you that likes it, and doesn't want it to stop…_

… _ **.Love me, how?...**_

He doesn't understand her, and he'll wager that maybe she doesn't even understand herself at this point.

He knows that staying would have been a mistake. It's never the right time, and the idea of such a thing plagues him more than he'll ever admit.

He is...changing, though. And she brought all of that into action. He is now scared of the future. Of _their_ future. Of things changing beyond his control.

She was the one...who forced him to care about another living person more than hisself.

 _Now,_ that person was leaving him.

 _She_ had nudged him into countless relationships with people, all of which ended, and mostly because of _her_.

 _They all leave, in the end._

Even she tries to leave. But only ever for him. To save him, to help him.

And he just...can't let go anymore. He's finding every second with her harder and harder to ignore.

Now...he wants _more_. Of her. Of them.

He's tired of being a bachelor, of seeing the people in his life find that 'special other person' and settle down and move towards their own dreams. Something shaped beyond goals and successes.

 _I don't have dreams...I have goals. And now onto the next..._

Things change. And now he wants someone who will keep him. Forever, more than steady. Someone who understands him and doesn't fear or judge the complicated facets of his being. Who he can come home to and share something that isn't his endless day of work.

He's been bringing his job home at night for over fifteen years.

It's time to bring something else instead. Greet more than silence and distant lights and expensive Whiskey.

He doesn't even own a television. He doesn't even have a life outside of those walls.

His only problem, if it even presents itself as such, is that right now, and for a while, amidst all the others, when he looks at the ideal woman in his head, despite all of the words said, and the people that have passed him and the ones that have intervened. Even when he ignores all of that,

All he can see, _is her_.

Donna.

And there's only one problem with that.

She said she 'didn't feel anything when she kissed him'.

 _Was it possible that she lied, about that?_ Like she's been known to do before? Or were her actions tonight, born out of sadness and fear and losing people swiftly, like he had done, also. Or perhaps, in knowing how the kiss had affected him, had she played on that? Reaped her own selifsh sense of comfort born out of the information that she knew he would reciprocate.

He dashes the last thought. She's never been cruel to him. It's not in her nature. The last cruel thing she did was impose a rule, and even that had understandable reasons attached to it.

There is barely anything in this world that he would not give her, if she asked him for it.

But what is he to trust now, other than that she loves her job, and loves her new position - _completely apart from him now_ \- and she too is glad to have something of what they had shared before.

 _ **Back to Normal? If they are for you then they are for me...**_

He downs the rest of his glassful, knowing that if he sits here any longer, he'll begin to tie himself up in knots that will lead him angrily to bed, and waking in no better a mood.

That night, he dreams of _her_.

But instead of a dream,

 _It's a memory._

 _She's moaning, purring almost with that rich, luxurious tone of hers, every sound in reaction to his tongue, as it makes deliberately lazy swirls against her skin only to change tact, rotating it in a figure of eight, following the dots of whipped cream that she had placed to his exact specification as she bucks and arches her back against his every touch._

 _He's never done this with anyone in his life, and he's sure that they are both raving mad, her; for allowing him into her apartment and finally shedding her rule, whipped cream in hand, and him; for holding out on such a thing for longer than he's ever chased any woman. Her skin is fragrant and pale and silky soft and he finds himself falling for her unique charm, all freckles and knock-knees and peach tinted porcelain as he all up laps her up with a sense of vigour and youth about himself. His arousal is peaked, and he's nearly finished which means that he needs to pull out all the stops if he is to make this last any longer. But she's whip smart, even in her thorough enjoyment, her fingernails gently scratching against the back of his neck in a way that has shivers running against his chest, and an innate urge to crawl up her body and into her arms, just to have her do it again. His eyes flick to hers, immediately spotting that purposeful look in her hazel orbs, mixed with the hazy pull of the beginnings of orgasm as he sucks at her and delves his fingers into her just to see her hips raise up and forward, encouraging him deeper. It excites him, this eager reaction in her, from someone usually so held together, someone so restrained at work and in his presence. It's something he never thought he'd get to see in a million years, and it feels fleeting, even in it's heightened sense._

 _She is fire and flame and his undoing, and when she comes against him for the first time, it's like he is seeing his future in the perfect picture of her, and he knows._

 _He's a little done for._

 _But she's not going anywhere. Not if he has anything to do with it..._

. . ….

 ** _Good night sweetheart, till we meet tomorrow_**

 ** _Good night sweetheart, sleep will banish sorrow_**

 ** _Tears and parting may make us forlorn_**

 ** _But with the dawn, a new day is born (so I'll say)_**

 ** _Good night sweetheart, tho' I'm not beside you_**

 ** _Good night sweetheart, still my love will guide you_**

 ** _Dreams enfold you, in each one I'll hold you_**

 ** _Good night sweetheart, good night_**

 ** _Good night sweetheart, till we meet tomorrow_**

 ** _Good night sweetheart, sleep will banish sorrow_**

' _Goodnight Sweetheart' By the Flamingos_

. . ...

Donna Paulsen dresses for the work day, right on the apex of focus.

Half for herself, as armour, the newer style of sharp lines and suit-tailored dresses,

And half...to offset the man she's sure will be in a muddy mixture of moods today.

He had asked if he'd see her in the morning. _Worried that she wouldn't stay._

But even with that, it didn't discount that after she had all but thrown herself at the man - _for the second time in such a short while_ \- and then ripped herself away from his growing reaction, that he would be particularly displeased with her actions, overall.

He had asked her to promise him that _that, which happened,_ would never again happen.

She had agreed, wholeheartedly, at the time.

And now, she had...done it again. _Oops._

She was glad he hadn't followed after; knocking on her door and demanding answers that she didn't fully possess.

But there is a small part of her, the somewhat wicked kind, subordinate almost and born out of the stubborn refusal to accept her feelings for this man, that actually supported her lack of answer that she had for Paula.

 _She couldn't promise the woman that it wouldn't happen._ Because there was only one absolute when it came to them.

And that, was that they remain in one another's lives. _Indefinitely._

He couldn't let her go. She knew this to be gospel, now.

Everything else between them, it seems, _is up for debate._

She looks up at her choice, examining it in her long mirror. It's a Nero teal coloured sleeveless sheath dress. It has a sheer plunging neckline that's partly concealed with shimmer material, and a rosette of wave like material that extends from one hip. It's sexy and tantalising, but form fitting enough to be all business.

She is no longer someone's assistant. She is now her own person, with her own job role. Of course, she still aids Harvey. That's never going to stop, as long as they work together. And she'll always have access to his calendar, his clients, and the inner workings of his cases and workload.

Some things will never change.

She thinks of pinning her hair up like she had done the night before, but it's a bld move. One with too high a risk.

 _A little too much_ , considering the facts.

He has a eagle eye for detail, after all.

 _And she doesn't want to invoke the beast._

. …..

 _It ain't easy but it's almost over_

 _This heart was made to wonder_

 _But I will conquer_

'Conquer' - By RIVVRS

. …..

Harvey wakes with a heaviness. As though his brain has been so active, so vividly entangled in a state of his own minds eye, that he hasn't so much as properly rested his body.

He takes a long shower, feeling the need to release the tension of the past week or so but knowing that it will only drown him deeply into a sense of emotional self indulgence. He's too tired for a run, instead favouring a very strong coffee to perk him up.

It's Ray's day off, and so the drive to work is quiet and uninterrupted, the day looking rather busy in the back to back traffic that's forming up fifth.

He assumes everyone will be in late today, nursing heads and -

It dawns on him then, that save for Donna, only Alex and Louis will be in attendance from last night.

He dashes the strong pull on his heart, as he focuses on the meetings he knows he has scheduled for the day, running them down one by one in his mind. Robert Zane and his posse aren't due for another week yet, but no doubt Robert will be in an even more paltry mood, after finding out that he won't be merging with his daughter's firm, but instead, a firm that has stood as a rival for near on decades.

He's sure he's going to lock horns with this guy. He can feel it, in his gut. And his two biggest assets against that kind of complication won't be there.

He steps out of the cab with even more dread about him, gliding, despite his lowered mood, with his usual amount of purpose, sliding past the turnstiles and into the elevator.

He looks for her, but she's not with him, instead he's flanked by a bunch of associates that are too afraid to directly meet his eye. The slightly sardonic side of him inwardly smiles at the idea that he can still terrify an elevator full of people with his sheer presence alone.

He wanders out of the elevator and into the lobby, his eyes casually glancing around for any sign of her.

 _Nothing._

The absence of her makes him feel like a fool, for investing so much brain power in seeking her out. He draws a breath, deciding to avoid looking into her office just to reclaim a little shred of dignity, as he calmly treads into his own office.

He still misses the morning greetings, and the sense of occasion at her being sat outside his desk. He understands that she needed more, and is the first to defend her deserving of her new role, but he is at least honest enough with himself to admit that it still stings a touch, at her not being there.

Thirteen Years, they had been together. Not ten feet away, six days a week. Thirteen years he had said good morning to her, talked with her, listened to her or on those occasions avoided her lectures. She had framed the start of his mornings, their calls in between and the beginnings of his evenings for so long, that for a creature of habit such as himself, it was a hard thing to lose willingly.

He sits at his desk, trying to bury his head in the day.

But when a streak of red and green darts across the front of his office, he finds himself unable to completely focus. He huffs, his mouth bending in distaste as it awakens a recurring feeling.

All at once,

He misses Mike Ross.

 _The only other person that could pull him out of this._

. . .. ..

"Good Morning Donna, I have the new budget list you asked for, with that ten percent adjustment?"

Donna looks up to spy Louis Litt, chirpy and practically effervescent as he marches into her office, blue suit clad and laying down the document with a sense of overstated gravitas about the action.

She suppresses a grin, picking up the document. "Morning Louis. Ah...amazing. _You_ ," She regards. " _Are a star_." She compliments.

"And you are very welcome." He says, lingering near her desk. " _And I come with other news_ ,"

Her eyes flick up, wide and rather comical. "What is it, Louis?"

"In exactly one week, three days and six hours, Sheila is moving into my house. With Me. And...we're going to try for a baby."

" _Oh my god_ ," She grins instantly, moving to stand. She loves Sheila. Despite the woman's rather strange temperament, she could see from last night just how much the woman loved Louis. She had spied, from Harvey's arms, the way that the woman held onto him, wrapping herself around him with a tenderness and a care. It had warmed her heart to know that Louis Litt finally got the woman of his dreams. And they fit. Completely.

It seems that everybody gets somebody that fits them. She's not sure where _she_ fits into that ideal anymore.

"Congratulations, Louis. I'm so pleased." She pulls Louis into a hug, hearing him hiccup a smile of pure joy, as he squeezes her gently.

"I just keep thinking, is this real? Is this finally happening? This wonderful woman wants to be with me, and share a life with me and I'm actually getting to have that?"

"For what it's worth, you two looked adorable last night." She notes.

"We did didn't we," He agrees, mirth ridden, his cheshire cat grin wider than she thinks she's ever seen before. "But enough about me...what about you? I noticed you and Harvey were….close, last night."

"It was just a dance, Louis." She defends. They _had_ spent the night rather closely entwined. _But that doesn't mean..._ "People dance." She adds, shrugging defensively.

 _With them there are no absolutes._ For all she knows, he'll run out and get another girlfriend.

"Alright, Alright," He relinquishes, his hands flying up to excuse his indulgence. "All I wanted to say, was...you two look...good together."

"Thanks Louis." She smiles softly, allowing him his one thing, as she watches him retreat back out into the hall. "But I wouldn't hold out on anything," She assures him.

"I'm not so sure...I have a feeling, your luck is going to change," He says, ominously, as he wanders out into the hall with a retreating smile.

She's glad that he hadn't mentioned Mike and Rach.

One complication is enough for the day.

She sighs, returning to her work, ignoring the feel of the man on the otherwise of the wall.

. . ….

 _ **Can't keep my hands to myself**_

 _ **Think I'll dust 'em off, put 'em back up on the shelf**_

 _ **In case my little baby girl is in need**_

 _ **Am I coming out of left field?**_

' _Feel it Still' By Portugal. The Man._

. . ...

Harvey's day has been too boring to keep his mind fully off of a certain redhead, and without the adequate distraction of his starkly absent partner in crime, he is hungry for a problem to fall into his lap and adequately pull his focus. They had both managed, by some inexplicable turn of events, or some kind of frustrating coincidence to miss one another in the morning, that flash of her passing his office being the only time he had managed to lay eyes on her. After finding her not at her desk on two separate occasions, in between him dragged out to various meetings, it is fastly approaching early dinner by the time he actually starts to make his way back to the office. But now, a heavy field of yellow and black traffic is blocking his final destination. He frowns, looking around the cars, a nugget of doubt, born out of idleness starting to embed itself into his brain like a stubborn tick.

 _Is Donna...avoiding him?_

He fishes his phone out of his pocket, hating himself for the mere decision of such a thing, as he speedials her number, raising the phone to his ear as he clears his throat of any doubt.

"So...you finally remember my number?" He hears her chime down the phone, a surprising sense of confidence in her distinct voice.

" _My phone_ remembers your number," He remarks coolly, countering her quick-wittedness, only this time he isn't quite as cool as usual. Not as calmly collected as he has been with her before. _He_ called _her_. Enroute to the firm. Not for a work reason.

This is a different scenario. Like their drinking session last week.

He hears her chuckle on the other end of the phone, that ribbon of colour that her voice unleashes, sending a smile to stretch across his own face. "What can I do for you, Harvey?" She asks.

"I was just...wondering...if you're going to be in the in the office... _when I get back_?" He asks, trying for a lightness in his voice.

He hears her suspend a breath, something that fills him with unease for the three seconds that it takes her to answer. He straightens, his free hand tapping on his knee as a wanton distraction from the bead of sweat trailing down his back.

"Of course, Harvey." She says softly. " _Why_?" She asks, her natural curiosity peaking out.

"No reason," He assures her. " _Gotta go_ ," He lies, before ending the call.

He lingers on their interchange as the car halts once more.

. . ...

 ** _Donna misses Rachel._**

It's times like these, when she needs the careful considerations of her friend. Donna had always been a loner, of sorts, honing her deducting skills enough to make up her own mind more often than not. It seems that Harvey, is the only subject that she ever needs an aid for. Someone to listen, to let her bounce her thoughts off of. To listen to the emotional minefild that has been she and Harvey's checkered past.

Now, she was reduced to Gretchen, who was shrewd and observational - _like her_ \- but who had limited time for her, with Louis being a full time job on top of her actual duties. And then there was Katrina, with whom she had had several impersonal interactions with over the years. They were on good terms, but essentially, out of all the women that have inhabited Specter Litt over the years. Rachel had been the only one that truly stuck.

And her absence was...palpable, now. To say the least.

She mentally kicks herself for going back on her own resolution - of pretending that the newly wed couple are merely on their honeymoon.

That self imposed lie hasn't so much as lasted a day.

She groans, twiddling her pen between the fingers on her right hand, as her eyes drift away from her current assignment. A client immediacy report - a structured list of points at which Harvey and Louis's clients would need possible extra attention. Over the years, she had structured Harvey's clientele with ease. Birthdays, Annual Board meetings, dates of revisions for contracts and possible opportunities to lend valuable aid, were all documented, in diary form, and then sent to Harvey as points of interest. After moving away from a Harvey-only focus of working, she had decided that now that Louis was a Managing Partner, it served well to gather the same kind of attentions to his finance focused clients, to keep apprised of both of their top earners and then involve Katrina once she had a functional list up and running.

She saves her document, closing her tablet against the desk, and finds herself doing something that she hasn't done in a long while. She lets the impulse take her, as she glides out of her office, and into his.

She used to wander his office on the days that he wasn't there, back in the good old early days. She had seen his office as her home just as much as his, and it soothed her to wonder over albums, or stare out at the varying views with every office change she had been party to.

But his office feels different now. It's not hers anymore. There are pieces of her, in the pictures she's hung, and the bottle of whiskey that she still orders for him, to be refilled periodically. And of course, her fingerprints are over every single record in his vast collection, perhaps a thousand times over. She's touched his basketballs so many times she thinks she might actually have smudged an autograph or two by accident, and although she doesn't refill the cartridges in his pens anymore, she's sure she still knows the number of the ink that he uses.

She sighs, looking about the room of familiar things, before her attention directs itself to a record, slightly out of sync with the rest.

She walks to his vinyl collection, her fingers plucking the record, sleeve covered.

She smiles when she turns it over in her hands.

" _ **Back to the scene of the crime, huh**_?"

His suddenly close and overly distinct voice makes her visibly jump, as she shoots her wild gaze at him, eyes wide and surprised by his seemingly immediate presence, no less than a few feet away from her.

"Harvey! My god, whistle a tune or something," She scolds, flapping slightly at the sight of him, smirking in that way that makes his jaw uneven and the eyebrow with moles to arch with interest. Some of his expressions are completely beguiling, and wholly handsome on a man like him. It's a terrible mixture when he really turns it on.

"And miss you jumping out of your skin?" He offers, smirking. " _Not a chance_." He resolves.

She rolls her eyes as his coolly whipped behaviour, distilling a breath between her lungs as she places the record back in it's rightful place.

"What are you doing in here?" He asks. There is a softness to his voice, where hardness always used to plant this question before.

It knocks her off of her game for a second.

"That…" She says, dragging out the word to gve herself the much needed pause. "Is a rather interesting question...to which...only _Budda_ knows the true answer."

"You're being weird... _are you okay_?" He frowns, pouting slightly at her strange behaviour as his hands slide into his pockets.

She thinks that after thirteen years, he would be used to her by now.

 _Apparently two kisses and they are both all over the place..._

"Says the guy who called me just to…. _see if I'd be in the office when he got back_." She plays the point like a counter argument, her hip popping slightly to challenge his resolve.

"I hadn't seen you all day." He shrugs. "I was…"

" _Worried_?"

"Curious." He counters, something spiking his eyes.

Her face flattens then, spying more of that something underneath his casual seeming demeanour. "I told you that I'd be here, Harvey. _And...here I am_." She gestures.

"I know." He nods, non-commital in the face of her words.

She frowns, trying to second guess this altered state of his.

" _So_ …" He says.

"Look, about last night," She starts.

He's suddenly looking at her like he has no idea what she's about to come out with.

" ** _Harvey, we need to talk about Robert Zane - Hey Donna_ ,**"

Their faces flash in unison, to the picture of Louis _with the worst timing in the human world_ Litt, standing before them with an impatience, his steps halting at the sight of them both.

She watches the good spirit drain from Harvey almost immediately as he turns to Louis, reigning in his annoyance in favour of listening to his Partner.

"I'm gonna go," Donna offers, gliding out of the office without waiting to hear a reply from either.

 _She wonders if an office romance is even this hard for anybody else in the entire world._

 _Even if everybody is onboard the 'darvey' train..._

. . ….

 ** _Keep on hangin' on_**

 ** _Stuck here 'til I'm gone_**

 ** _Boys still throwin' stones_**

 ** _Runnin' till I'm wrong_**

 ** _I never listened_**

 ** _To tell the truth_**

 ** _I never knew_**

 ** _But nobody misses_**

 ** _What you did_**

 ** _Quite like I do_**

 ** _Got me thinkin' 'bout it_**

 ** _All day long_**

 ** _('til we're dead and gone)_**

 ** _All day long_**

 ** _('til we're dead and gone)_**

 _'Keep on' By Portugal. The Man._

. ...

When Donna finishes up for the night, Harvey isn't in his office, with her having seen him follow Louis into the gunnells of the firm over an hour previous. Now that they were Mike-light, it would mean that they needed to find new weapons to fight with. She didn't envy Harvey or Louis's position - dealing with a man such as Robert Zane, without either Mike or Rachel present - with a merging of two houses in that manner, it was a difficult situation enough to navigate with just the two of them.

She at least, has managed to finish the two reports, ahead of her schedule, mostly in direct contrast to her minds rather frustrating urge to fixate on her broken conversation with Harvey, hours earlier.

The man was making her feel uneasy, not in the fearful way, but in the completely confused kind of way.

She taps her foot, waiting for the elevator doors to open. She is tired, after a night like last night, and the come down of their new situation as a firm, topped off with Harvey 'changing with every moment' Specter now in the beginnings of opening as an emotional flower of sorts - a strangely girlish analogy for a contradiction such as he - she's finally been drained of all she has left in her.

Her night will be simple. Streamlined. Specific. _A bath. Wine. And bed._

She double takes as Harvey appears, sliding lithely in between the doors, standing beside her just in time to see them shut heavily in front of them.

She should have figured that this would happen. That he would catch her eventually. She straightens, stilling that uneasy sense of the unknown, as she concentrates on the doors in front of them for a moment.

Her eyes flick to his out of pure curiosity, spying the unrest in them, the way he's pulled at his tie, more dishevelled than the last time she had seen him. She can't be sure if it's because of her or Robert Zane, at this point in the night.

"Hey," She says, her tone slightly airy.

"Hey," He replies, frowning awkwardly.

"Listen, Harvey, I-" She reasons.

But it's too late for words, it seems, as he interrupts her, pulling her body into him with a rush, the action knocking the wind clean from her lungs, and the sturdy planting of her feet to buckle slightly under the weight of her heart as his cupid lips press against hers. He nudges her lips open as his head angles, something so potent and unrestrained about the action as he fuses them together, like a red and blue wire sparking and engulfing them both. She is helpless to even think for herself, her hands caught in the space between their chests, heaving with every desperate tugging of his lips against hers, a bruising kiss with noses bumping and his born intensity as they both fight for air, neither daring to pull away.

After a moment or two he slows, something seemingly exorcised within him as he abates his urge, kissing her soundly with the narrowest restraint, his free hand losing itself in her thick head of curls, as he sighs between their barely parted lips. She wants to pull him into herself, but she is gracious enough to let him have this one. She knows, deep down, that if she gives as good as she gets, his hand will slam against that emergency button without a second thought, plunging them both into nakedness and a rather compromising situation - one that they may not properly work themselves out of at this late hour.

She turns her palm over, her fingers ghosting against his stubbly jaw, sliding further down his neck and lingering against the stiff fabric of his open collar, her eyes examining his, the slight twitch of his eyebrows, a tension beginning to set in, contradicting the rather lustful look in his eye.

All the pieces fall in unison, like a loose pack of cards. Something that's been missing from her understanding of a man like him. This expression, _his_ expression, it's a mixture of a look that he's given her thousands of times over the years, that restrained frustration, usually due to her pushing, or her ripe behaviour, and his acceptance of her being.

But she had gotten it wrong, before.

It's never been about him being _at odds_ with her,

On the contrary, it's been the exact opposite.

This is all his feeling for her falling out in the space between them.

And she's never noticed - _Until now._

" _I thought we agreed that we'd never do that again…_ " She breathes the question, the humour threaded through her voice like a woven blanket, the possible answers mingling in the space between them.

"I think we both know, that _I_ wasn't the one that broke that agreement." He says, his voice hard, but a noticeably lopsided smirk appearing across his face. "And I've been...thinking about it all day," He admits, sighing at his own admission.

She laughs, rolling her eyes at the way he manages to affect her so.

"That'll teach you to hold my hand." She jokes.

" _Wow._ Suddenly glad that you didn't dance with _everybody_ at the party, if that's all it takes." He quips.

She ignores his rather cumbersome joke. "Harvey...what are we doing?" She asks.

"Well...we're… _you know_ …" He infers their current proximity.

"It appears..." She sighs. "But..we need to talk." She says, her voice slicing through the moment like stainless steel through mozzarella.

He blinks, a bold frown falling onto his face. "Now? _Now_ , is when you wanna talk?"

She gives him a look then. It takes him two seconds of looking into her eyes to back off. He lets go of her then, giving them some much needed space as he leans against the elevator wall, a sense of forced casualness about his action.

For a second, she thinks he's being ridiculous, leaning up against the inside of an elevator, his legs cross at the ankle, looking expectantly at her. "Okay... _talk_." He offers, a staunchness about his demeanour.

"Okay." She nods, gathering her thoughts. "I...lied…" She divulges.

"What?" He frowns softly.

"When I told you I didn't feel anything for you. When I kissed you?" She reminds him. " _I lied_."

He gives her a somewhat startled look, his chin raising, before a slightly fatherly scorn roams about his face. "Yeah…I kind of worked that out _last night_ , after you _stuck your tongue down my throat_." He lies, riding the words that fill his mouth.

She makes a face at him, scrunching up her nose at his crude remark. "What can I say," She shrugs, smirking against the feeling of being put on the spot. "New habits, _die even harder_ ," She quips, waiting a beat before she asks her own question. "You...felt something...when I kissed you?" She deduces.

"Yes," He confirms, nodding cleanly at her, his jaw flexing at the sheer memory of it. _He had been like a teenager, knocked off his feet by the girl next door. Out of the clear blue sky... "_ Both times." He notes.

"Okay." She nods, turning slightly. He watches as she breathes a long sigh.

His eyes widen for a moment, as he pushes off of the wall with his hands, challenging the about turn in the conversation. "That's….it?" He checks, frowning. " _'Okay'_?"

"Uh-huh." She says plainly, pulling her handbag to herself, as her eyes train on the zero that appears on the elevator console. She readies herself as the doors open, and she glides out, her long legs making sizable strides.

He frowns even deeper, confusion flooding his features as he marches to catch up with her. He's completely at a loss as to the reason she seems so... _calm_. So resolute on a decision that they haven't even made together, but she has clearly come to all by herself. He's spent well over a decade dodging the million conversations she wants to have with him and now, finally, after all that's happened, and all he's now half-willing to indulge in, she's cutting the verbal legs from under him.

"Donna," He calls, watching as she halts along the edge of sidewalk, peering into traffic. "Donna," He begins, planting his feet with a stubbornness. "What's going on? You say you want to talk...and then you say…'okay', and now...nothing?"

"Yes," She nods curtly, her attention drawing back to the sea of traffic.

" _Are you friggin' kidding me_?" He says, his voice raising.

"What, Harvey?" She asks, feigning understanding for his sudden outburst.

" _All those years_. Every time you wanted to have _a talk_ with me about my life, my relationships, my feelings, _**you**_...and now... _nothing_?" He says, a building annoying peeling his words as his eyes narrow at her.

She looks to him, examining the frustration that reflects back at her.

"Harvey," She says, planting her feet so that they now stand parallel. "You felt something. _**I**_ felt something. There's no….need...to talk at length about it."

" ** _Why not_**?" He frowns.

"Because…" She inhales sharply, out of words as she looks out towards a swarm of incoming cabs.

His hand comes out in front of her, trying to direct her eyeline to him. "Donna, I'll get Ray to take you." He says hurriedly, thoughtlessly referring to her ride home. Her eyes flick up to his then, feeling that potent stare of his.

"Ray's off today," She reminds him.

He double takes, confusion riding his face at the strange brainfart of a moment. "Donna...Why don't you want to talk about it?" He fires at her. "Huh? Because, what? You're...scared?" He offers, shaking his head slightly.

"No." She frowns, a little more animated than he deems to spy a truthful response to be.

His head tilts, challenging her denial of the matter, his eyes ping ponging back between each of hers to spot the reasoning.

"Please just...tell me what's going on." He half-pleads.

 _Even when he half-ass's the emotion, she can't resist it._

"I….just...think that….if we're on the same page, then we need...time...to...figure things out." She says, holding her bag against herself.

Her response stumps him. Rolls him over flat like a Golden Retriever waiting for the last morsel of his Master's meal, only to watch her clean the plate without a word.

" _Time_?" He answers finally, his lips mashing together with a distaste.

"Yes." She nods. "Time." She confirms.

"You realise that you're the most complicated woman that I've ever _been with_ in my entire life,"

"Well someone had to keep you one your toes." She reasons with a heavy smirk. "And if it wasn't going to be _Scottie_ ,"

"What is it with you two?" He accuses.

"What?" She frowns, pouting slightly.

"You...sniff each other out."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"What it's supposed to mean is, that she came to my office to apologise the other day, and ask if I had worked out my shit, and then, before I know it, I'm telling her about Paula, but _she's asking about **you**_."

"What did she ask you?"

"If you had something to do with the break up."

The expression on her face falls flat against the words. "Oh."

"And I didn't even need to answer for her to work it out."

"Did she want to start things up again?" She asks, her face ridden of all emotion.

" _Not now,_ she doesn't." He remarks, rather irksome.

"I'm sorry, Harvey."

" _Don't be_." He says automatically. " _This_ is... _not_ about Scottie." He tells her, his eyes planting the emphasis of the fact.

She nods, falling into a moment of thought as she gestures an oncoming cab to pass on by.

"Listen…" He says, planting his attention firmly on her. "I'm going to...do something really stupid, and ignore your needing this...time you're requesting and….ask if you would... _like to have dinner, with me_. At mine. Tonight."

"Harvey," She huffs. "I said-"

"I know what you said." He interrupts, snatching at her line of thought. "And _I think_ , for once...it's not a good idea."

"Why not?" She frowns, blinking.

"Because…" He sighs, trying to find the words. "Wouldn't it make more sense to...explore what's going on, instead of brushing it under the rug...again?"

"Perhaps." She reasons, before another thought comes to the fore. "But-"

"No buts, Donna. _Have dinner with me_." He presses.

" _At your apartment_?" She clarifies.

"Yes." He nods, observing the look of unease in her eyes.

"Why do I feel like I'm getting…'Harvey Specter'd'?" She says, a wary expression framing her delicate features.

"Did you just use my name as a verb?" He checks, giving her an amused look.

"...Maybe..." She divulges, smirking at him.

"What exactly do you think I do with women when they come to my apartment? Prey on them?"

" _I've_ seen American Psycho." She notes, a familiar wickedness returning to her.

"That's not funny." He says, dead-panned.

"But seriously," She scoffs. "Every guy has his...bit, you know." She tells him.

"His _bit_?" He says, pouting slightly against the question.

"Yes." She shrugs the nearest shoulder to him. "His bit. His checklist. Let's call it a...practised line of action when... _seducing a woman_."

"You think I'm...trying to seduce you?" The way he says it makes her want to reach over and lick the entire antihelix of his right ear. She draws a breath trying not to engage in the daydream of what that could potentially feel like, over ten years down the line from the last time...

"Well, aren't you?" She throws back at him.

He smirks at her then, like a man _caught at his defining purpose._ His face flattens soon after, innocence deliberately charting his features. " _Maybe_...I just...want to spend time with you, with no interruptions, outside of this place," He says, nodding to the towering building beside them. "One that we've...practically _lived in_ for a decade." He adds.

 _And perhaps, he has absolutely no idea what to do with this rather beautiful woman..._

"Will there be...wine...at this so called time-spending endeavour?" She offers, something slightly cheeky about her words.

"Wine. Whiskey. _Water_." He shrugs, his lips twitching.

They are momentarily offset by the sleek black car that jogs their memory, slowing alongside them.

Harvey waits, seeing the possibilities turning in her mind like a rigged slot machine.

"Well?" He encourages, watching as a smirk appears on her face.

He steps forward, opening the door as he witnesses her slide silently on to the backseat.

He suppresses a pang of nerves that stir with within his gut, as he joins her, shutting the car door behind them both.

 _This entire day is a game changer._

. . . ..

 _ **Take all the love you're given**_

 _ **Through the gap in the wall**_

 _ **Seal it tight with the light blue ribbon**_

 _ **Then unlock the door**_

 _ **But your ego won't let you love**_

 _ **And your fear is your downfall**_

 _ **If you won't take the love you're given**_

 _ **Then at least let me go**_

' _The love you're given' By Jack Garrett._

. . ….

 _It appears that I've been forced to write Louis Litt, something that I'm under-practised at. Bare with me, and as always, please feed the kitty. A x_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Author's Notes**_ : Sorry for the delay guys! My car, Harvey Specter died! :-( RIP... Crazy month. And the Promo? Thank god they fixed it. Let's hope they deliver.

And for anyone who's music hooked with this show, check out the band Jungle on Spotify. The top tracks are SO BADLY Harvey Specter I can't even. try happy Man. That recent find, and all the panicked shippers are my _only_ reason for continuing…

 _Full disclosure, there is barely any plot here. I'm just writing these fools._

 _:End of Transmission:_

. …. .

 **Chapter Four**

. . ….

 ** _If you're filled_**

 ** _With affection_**

 ** _You're too shy to convey_**

 ** _Better take my direction_**

 ** _Feel your way_**

' _You're the One that I Want **'**_ _by LO-FANG (Cover)_

 _. . …._

The cab ride is electric,

As if their entire situation has started breeding an energy, the culmination of over thirteen years worth of mixed emotion, latent désire and two people denying themselves to one another, now drawn together in a vacuum of carefully seeded potential.

She can feel it, this... _electricity_...between them. She can almost sense the spike of intention lashing at his bones, suspending his frozen form next to her on the polished leather seat that they share.

She wonders if he is aware of himself. _Aware of the tangible note in the air._

She darent look at him, otherwise she's sure that on the very fringe of their eyes meeting, they'll delve into a similar dance to the one that they shared the night before. Only it won't be confined to hands and gestures and fluidity, but rather, stark impulses, desires and feeding one another's internal fire. _Tipping the apex on their carefully balanced world and threatening to plunge them into unchartered water, farther than any simple kiss can ever take them._

He had offered _dinner_. And in her mind it can mean no more and no less, otherwise the balance would offset again, and then she would be at risk of falling into 'no man's land'. And she wasn't confident enough, right now, that if he _did_ fall with her, if they landed into the same agreement, that he would even remain afterwards. There had been something disappointing and yet comfortable, in the other time. In him leaving her early, alone and cold to the morning after, but more than that…like extracting himself from her world after such a lengthy stay. And if she wakes up in his bed now, naked, unprotected and with all emotional walls stripped away, to him, shunning her, or absent once more - _perhaps launching himself into a run or any of the other perfunctory routines of his day_ \- she's not entirely sure that she wouldn't completely lose her shit at him, riding him like a Pheonix on the very brink of all that he would unknowingly force out of her.

Despite this, there is a shred of something promising underpinning the evening. Something that is seemingly set in stone.

 _That tonight...is different from all other nights that have come before it._

She's always known that he is different to her, like she is to him. But no matter the feeling, or the connection, or the overwhelming hold they still have on one another, all of that means exactly dick, if either of them get scared or run so much as an inch afterward.

 _A kiss...isn't everything._

It has all the power to suggest more, but never guarantee the same in return.

She has always wondered though, when she would be fully allowed into his private world.

If he would ever beckon her to that place that he takes the kind of people he usually _never_ sees again.

 _Except for Paula Agard..._

 _And Dana Scott..._

She lingers on the turning of the tide,

And manages the divide between them.

….. .

 ** _I promise if you're gonna lock me out_**

 ** _I will stand as your ghost_**

 ** _If you take the love you're given_**

 ** _I will leave you alone_**

' _The Love you're Given' By Jack Garrett_

. . ….

Harvey Specter is nervous and not in a way that breeds the fruitfulness of possibility.

He and Donna have spent so much time together over the years, every pocket of time breathing life to their connection, into their familiarity of one another, that he's sure it's made him over sensitive of her simply laid presence around him.

All he wants to do is touch her. Yet, all he can think of is what a dangerous thing it seems, to even consider the impulse.

 _He can't mess this up_. But he is entirely capable of doing so, and therefore, he can't let the possibility of such a thing mature in his mind's eye.

His eyes flick to her, sat beside him, her head trained at the driver's seat and the forward flow of evening traffic.

They have been silent for a while now, that trademarked sea of cars moving haphazardly around them, almost, in the alien slowness of their particular lane. Like even fate is delaying the inevitable, at this point.

He realises then. That he never gets to just... _look at her,_ anymore.

He used to sneak the occasional glance, not in an intrusive way - _or at least he hopes not_ \- when she used to sit outside his office for all those years. Those many little golden moments, when she would be deep in thought, or concentrating on a task that he had assigned her, her face relaxed yet concentrated, her trademark copper mane usually thrown over one shoulder; whatever dress she had decided to put on that day badly concealing her bare, freckle peppered shoulders. He would watch as she picked up a pen, or leant forward, an inch ahead of the keyboard to pluck a document or glance at notes, pausing only to sip her coffee or cross reference another piece of information.

And for as long as the phones were silent, she would never once look up, the entire time.

 _Like she was giving him that moment, a little pocket piece of her to have for himself._

He wagers, that he's crazy, sighing audibly into the space between them.

"What is it?" She asks lightly, plucking his unfocused gaze out from under the cover of patchy darkness. His eyes widen as he regards her, the gentle pull of a smirk at the mere sight of her.

"Nothing," He assures her, shaking his head.

She gives him a look then, immediately grinding his internal gears. _He's not sure he can get away with anything anymore._

It's perfect timing, his building flooding their view, bright, unyielding, gold tinted in the lobby.

He slips out of his side of the car, knowing that by the time he's made it out of the car, she's already on the sidewalk, tall and elegant, silently waiting to flank him.

He nods curtly to the doorman, as they graviator towards the elevator, Donna pressing the 'up' button, engaging the doors with a promptness, as his hand lifts, beckoning her inside first. _Ever the occasional gentleman..._

They slide into the metal box with an effortlessness, turning to face the doors, as Harvey moves forward, pressing the button to his floor on the elevator console.

Their joint breaths mingle against the audible hiss of their ascent, pulling them both closer to their destination.

After a moment, he catches her looking to him.

He blinks, noticing the way the strip lighting seems to catch at the various forest-themed colours in her hazel eyes.

"This is... _weird_. Right?" She says, her eyes flicking to his for a second, before she gazes out at the doors, her reflection a patchy Monet of her assembled parts and make-up.

His hands slip into his pockets, shrugging in that way he does. "I guess it is." He regards, a tired frown knitting his eyebrows together, his jaw twitching in thought of such a thing as he too looks at the doors in front.

He spies her straighten beside him, adding another layer of tension to the very small room. He gathers air into his lungs, ready to say something that will disarm her, or calm her nerves.

The doors open swiftly, quashing any chance he has like a bug against a windshield.

He huffs, gliding out of the elevator after her, his hands awkwardly stuffing into his pockets to find his key.

. . . .

 ** _I'm a troubled man, changed by the things I do_**

 ** _True, but it's funny how they all remember you_**

 ** _It all could be different, time to do something new_**

 ** _I've given everything, I want to be a happy man too_**

 ** _Got to understand, blamed by the friends I lose_**

 ** _Who's getting outta hand, do you think they depend on you?_**

 ** _It all could be different, try to do something new_**

 ** _I've given everything, I want to be a happy man too_**

' _Happy Man' By Jungle._

. . ...

Donna has barely been to his apartment over the years, and rarely at night. The last time she was here, she had gathered their work family, for what she didn't know would be their final meeting, waiting for Harvey to get home, as the head of the house, to make the final decision. She hadn't realised the emphasis of such a thing, until the open plan room bathed itself in golden lights right in front of her once more, the dark blue sky and bright white moon streaking through the large windows in the hallway, casting a slightly solemn note into the apartment.

A pang of sadness stabs at her chest, reminding her of their recent losses.

 _Mike and Rach, now on the opposite side of the country...following their dreams with new footprints, whilst their old ones start to fade._

She knows that it's over-emotional. That Robert is still in the city, which means that Rachel will be back regularly. _But Mike…_ She lets the dull ache in her chest settle, glancing at Harvey and watching as he pads across the polished floor, without a thought, flicking on the light and walking into his bedroom, leaving her lingering in the latter part of the hallway.

She takes a moment, setting her bag down on the row of breakfast stools, as she examines the world around her, spinning slowly on her heel as she regards the couch, the fireplace, the small study, and the reading nook by the window. All perfectly assembled, and seemingly untouched. There's always been something that has annoyed Donna about this apartment; something nagging at her in the back of her mind. She frowns, looking at the perfectly laid cushions, and the complete lack of dust about the place. She had verbally assaulted him one day, marching into his apartment with an ulterior motive and a cactus in hand. But her words, at the time, had been an honest deduction. And even after time had past, they still held their ground.

 _There was no life here._ For a vibrant man such as Harvey Specter, it seemed wrong…and it still plagued her.

" _You okay there_?"

She hears his voice first, moving like warm caramel over her shoulder, as she turns, witnessing him jacket-less, with sleeves rolled up to the elbow and a slightly interested look in his rather sultry eyes, as he regards her.

She straightens, clearing her throat just to normalise his directness, ignoring the slightly disarming stare of his.

"This apartment...it's not you. I don't know why, _but_ …" She steals a breath, ignoring his expression in favour of glancing about the place animatedly.

"What do you mean?" He says, squinting for a moment, before his eyebrows lift, wide eyes looking side to side, an expression that he's obviously stolen out of her playbook. She catches his eye. " _I_ live here Donna. This is my home?" He notes, his jaw twitching with an entertainment. "How can it _not_ be 'me'?" He smirks.

She scoffs, pointing to the small library of books. "Have you even read any of those books?"

"They're mostly the...Barbri Legal Handbook, but... _yes_ …" He counters, his eyes narrowing.

"What about Chaucer? Huh? Or Keats? Or Shakespeare, or…" She reams off, glding towards the bookshelf.

"Wait a second," He says, straightening with an abruptness as he follows her slowly. "Is this _my_ house, or your house?" He questions, interested, a mirth ridden boldness in his tone.

"Harvey," She says, bending his name in her mouth with a pressure as she turns to face him. "I worry that you...have no life, outside of that firm...and this apartment _is_...testament to the fact." She says, slashing her arm in a gesture about the place, her sudden interest in the bookshelf now a thing of the past.

His head tilts, regarding her, his hands sliding into his pockets. "That's because _I don't_ have a life outside the firm…" He sighs heavily, his lips bending. "Well, apart from Paula,"

"Harvey…" She objects.

" _Donna_ …" He counters. It's a difficult subject, still. "I hate to admit it, but she...was the most normal thing _in here_. As far as a 'normal life' is concerned." He shrugs noncommittally.

He's right, and she hates that he is. That woman will always sit badly with her, for as long as she can draw breath.

"And where's the Cactus?" She fires at him, changing the subject. She watches the blood drain discreetly from his face as she glides past him, back towards the vicinity of her bag.

She's sure she can see him physically gulp when it appears that he has no immediate answer for her.

"...Why...do wanna know?" He asks, his jaw setting.

"Just curious." She says, planting the words. " _Did you...get rid of it,_ _ **when you and Paula**_ _-_ "

" **No**." He blurts out, shaking his head, his eyes, large and orbular, swinging towards the hallway. "It's...in the spare bedroom." He divulges stubbornly.

She bends at the waist, smiling softly. "You...hid...the... _cact_ -"

" _ **Don't,**_ " He cuts her off roughly, his shoulders dropping with defeat as he marches past her with a huff.

She feels a smile twist out of her mouth as she straightens, her hands sliding onto her hips and turning in the direction that he's disappeared to.

It only takes a moment, till he returns, that swagger in his gait as he wanders towards her, a noticeable pride in the edges of his expression as he carries the potted plant in one hand.

She softens immediately, a bend in her gait as she looks to him, head tilted and a warmth flooding her veins.

"It's... _grow_ n," She notes playfully, trying not to linger on the idea of such a parallel, as she observes the lush green succulents and sturdy demeanour about them.

" _ **You told me**_ to look after it." He reminds her, his face twisting with a faked frustration, holding onto his true feelings for dear life. "So, I did." He shrugs. "I wasn't about to let it _die_ …" He remarks heavily, giving her a retaliatory look.

"Really?" She frowns, doubt lacing her words.

" _Never_." He says, a harder seriousness in his tone that he may have meant.

He clears his throat, passing past her and towards the coffee table in his lounge, as he bends, setting the plant pot down on the glass table, before turning to her, all feeling seemingly washed from his held form.

"Wine?" He offers, pointing to the kitchen.

"Make it a big one," She notes, gravitating to the edge of the kitchen counter.

She watches intently, as he moves with an expert grace that seldom catches at the average man. It's an internal rhythm of his; as if there is a band, and entire samba band playing a lengthy set from within inside of him, every gesture and movement an approbation of his hearts most inner thoughts. One that doesn't quite meet the surface, and exists in a moment or the insinuation of one. The wine pours with a strange drama and presence, pooling into each glass as he deems it so.

She loves to watch him. He is the Lion to her Serengeti tainted world; amidst the harsh temperatures and scorching sun that looks down upon their particular landscape, he is at the very apex, majestic, poised and focused; the vertible King of the desert plains, and she is like a stray, willingly preyed on copper streaked Gazelle, caught between his innate beauty and the danger that emanates from his core.

He catches her heavy gaze mid pour, something expensive and red, just like her, as he lifts the bottle between the two glasses, his hand hovering the bottle in midair.

" _What_?" He asks, a slight self-consciousness attached to the question, before he seems to second guess himself and place the bottle back down onto the counter.

"Nothing'" She says. It's a calculated response, and one born out of a unrestrained love of his ambiguous side.

For Donna Paulsen, Harvey Specter is at his most exciting when she can't second guess him. She's spent her life knowing people. Intrinsically and without reservation. Yet, he is the only one that she can't completely nail down. Of course...she knows him... _almost_ completely. His loves, and his losses. All unknowing projections and intentions and expectations rolled into one. But it's that 'almost', and the pieces that he willingly hides from her, that keep her firmly at his door.

She wonders if the pieces that he hides, are pieces to do with her. Pieces hidden or obscured or muddled somehow. Or, if there are other things that he hides from her. Other truths, that consequently have everything or nothing to do with her or them or how he sees her…

She breathes in when he hands her a glass, noticing that slightly over present look in his eye. She's not thinking of anything except him, as she moves the glass to her lips, her taste buds immediately relishing the vibrancy of its contents. She swallows, licking her bottom lip, as she very carefully, yet swiftly places the glass down on the counter, reaching forward to take his glass, a second off a mid gulp.

"Donna, what are you-" He objects, yet allows her to take his glass and set it quickly down.

Her lips slide against his with an insistence, all energy and and focus directed towards him.

He sounds an almost objection, but quickly abates any loose intention that may have resided that, as his hands slide around her, his lips, soft in touch until her fingers graze his neck, and then he's grasping her body, every inch of her that he can find. She tastes like red wine and apples and the promise of the pain in his chest releasing ever so slightly. He groans into her mouth, as the soft side of her tongue slides against his, her mouth encouraging his along for the ride.

They slow to a pause, as her fingers run across the edges of his slightly roughened jaw, her mouth closing rather seductively to a simple kiss as she fully disconnects from him, turning in his arms.

He doesn't let go, instead moving with her, his head sliding over one shoulder and into the crease of her neck, his hands wrapping around her hips.

"Excuse me, Ms Paulsen, where _exactly_ do you think you're going?" He asks her, rather pointedly, and with a thick tone of humour about him.

"Uh... _to the bathroom_?" She remarks, freezing to the spot.

He chuckles then, half at her comical tone and half at his emotional overstep, it seems, as he lets her disconnect, running a hand through his hair as she saunters to the bathroom.

It's official.

 _She'll be the death of him._

. . ….

 ** _Doing all that I can for you_**  
 ** _To be a warm-blooded man_**  
 ** _So I can treat you better_**

 ** _No I, I can't feel The Heat, yeah  
Don't let it catch you  
No, I, I can't feel The Heat, mmm_**

'The Heat' By Jungle

. . ...

This is entirely too much for a woman like her.

She's brash, confident, intuitive and ballsy, but none, it seems, is a characteristic enough to handle a man like Harvey Specter. And she knows, it's not really about him. He...is a pussycat, nine times out of ten. It's what the idea represents; that she is falling deeper and deeper and that they are potentially falling very deep indeed...deep enough to trump all of their past and to make it into something entirely new.

She had ridden a whim, stalking to his bedroom like she had, knowing that he had to have a master bath, but having never stepped foot in it until now.

They are uncontrollable. _She_ is… She leans forward, turning on the tap in a second to rinse her hands and dab at her makeup. She supposes it's almost gone, from a day of work that has sweated most of it away. But when she glances at the mirror its the exact opposite; slight panda eyes from where her makeup has smudged, and her a lip line that seems unfocused, as if he's blurred the lines of that, as well.

Of course, it's her fault.

 _All of it._

She started this rolling boulder of feeling between them. Harvey, it seems, is a simple creature. She on the other hand is….overly complicated…and she knows it. She's complex, in a way that her Mother doesn't understand and on a level that she's hidden from the prospective men of her rather colourful past.

But this is... _Harvey_. He knows her. More than she'd let on, and more than any other person would ever know. It's almost like a game to them. They _know_ one another. They play one another. But no other person - _save for Mike_ , _that wonderful little sneak_ \- has ever cared enough about or been privy to their exact connection. Sure, people have hinted. Assumed. But they've always been wrong.

All the times that people thought that they were fucking the years away and….only now, once opinion has been relatively dashed, and all witnesses carefully executed, has there been any real progress.

She's nervous. Of how he makes her feel, and what they are capable of. They've worked so well as each other's secret weapon for so long, that being more than that is unnerving for her. It's throwing her off kilter and pulling her out of her depth. The only saving grace is that she'll bet it's doing the same to him, too.

Alone, without work, and enemies and goals, they are just Harvey and Donna. Two people that naturally and instinctively gravitate towards one another.

She sighs, readying herself to go back in, as it were.

She draws a breath, readying herself.

 _It's time to shed an old skin._

. . ..

 _ **So who do I see, heh, coming up from lemonade lake  
She come for me  
She coming in for something warm  
Coming up in from lemonade lake**_

'Lemonade Lake' - By Jungle  
. . …..

When she wanders through the lounge, she's hit full pelt with the sounds and smells of cooking, and a very unlikely chef in the throws of what looks like...multitasking.

She smiles at the sight of Harvey shaking a frying pan over a barely used silver hob, whilst his other hand pours a helping of wine from the bottle into the pan, causing a sizzle and and pop to spark into the air.

" _Hey Gordon Ramsey_ ," She jokes, sauntering up to the breakfast counter, reaching over to grab her own glass, as she toes off her shoes. "What, _pray tell_ , are you cooking for us?" She asks eagerly, sliding onto a stool, inhaling the smell of garlic and onions.

"It's...a surprise…" He says, turning just enough to waggle his eyebrows at her.

She rolls her eyes, shrugging off just how sexy this man can look doing the most mundane of post-work tasks.

"A...good surprise, or a...bad surprise?" She asks, laying the bait.

He pauses, his features twitching like a cat. " _Remind me again._ What _was_ that brown, goopy thing that you served up at your _famous_ 'dinner party'," He reams off the words, with a casualness that still manages to burn.

" _That_...was a mushroom terrine, and _**you**_ _said_ you _liked_ it…" She says pointedly, her voice all colourful edges, like a multi-tonal set square.

He turns to her then, an eyebrow arching and a familiar objection in his tone. " _One_ , I was being polite, and two, _you_ didn't even eat it…" He accuses.

"That's because it was inedible!" She admits, chuckling into her wine glass as he smirks, reaching for a feathery green bunch of herbs that she can't confidently identify. She lifts her chin with interest, watching as he rips the heads off of the greenery, before throwing it into the pan along with the onions. "You know," she begins, her voice suggestive "...We could do with some _more_ stories like that." She says with a sigh. "The old ones are getting _….far too old_." She notes matter of factly. Despite her playfulness, it leaves a heaviness in her gut, in the realisation of just how long it's been since they really spent time with one another, out of work. It's rare these days, dwindling into very little as the years had passed. And after Paula, it had almost become a non existent concept, with the two of them spending no more than a drink together in as many months since she had become C.O.O.

She examines him, the thoughtful look in his eyes; that note of silence as he ponders the concept. It causes nervousness to blanch her chest, the silence of his not answering.

She watches as he places the sauce on a low simmer, stretching to open the fridge and pluck a half empty bag of fresh pasta from the middle shelf, and shutting the door, his hand pulling the plastic ziplock across to let the little twists of pasta to tumble haphazardly into the pan, before adjusting the heat,

She sips at her drink, downing it's contents in one go, as the palpable swell of silence erupts between them, the harsh burn of having too much too fast, a jarring contrast to the way she watches his back muscles, the ripple in them that cascades down the middle of his spine, drawing him closed and alert, like nighttime on a flower.

 _She wonders who the previous half a packet of pasta was for…_

She sighs, exasperated, not only with herself, but the situation at hand.

She's a confident woman. But this is Harvey, and he's given her a lot to doubt in the past...

 _He can be so close and yet all at once so far from her reach._

She stills a breath, picking up her glass, the last of its contents swirling in the bottom. For a moment or two, it becomes a focus, her swelling drunkenness, after a tiring day and an even more emotional week, added to that a lack of proper food to stifle her stomach's cavernous emptiness. She knocks the rest of the glass back before he can turn around to her, placing the glass onto the counter.

When he finally turns around, picking up his own glass to take a swig, his eyes dart to hers.

"Thirsty?" He remarks, indicating the small amount of red wine stain in the bowl of the glass.

"Well, you won't let me help, _so_ …" She offers, her eyes watching her fingers, as they toy with the glass.

He smirks then, something restrained, that doesn't quite catch the twinkle in his eye. He leans forward, something playing on the precipice of an intention he's not quite ready to play on. "I think we both know, that if you encroach into my _work space_ , we're not likely to end up with dinner any time soon." He says, his voice oozing charm.

She chokes on a laugh, her poker face bending at his forwardness. She steals a breath, to ease her quickening heartbeat, as she leans against the countertop, covering the slip. "Well...you always _were_ a 'dessert' first, kind of guy." She notes.

She can see it in his eyes. _She's got him. Completely_. She finds herself smiling broadly, like a cat that got the cream, as he looks away for a moment, shaking his head, his gaze almost completely masked from reaction when his darkening eyes finally reconnect with hers. "Why, Ms Paulsen, are you trying to seduce me?" He asks, his voice a sliver of sultry, as he leans against the countertop, cutting the space between them in half.

She's upright in a second, a soft objection to his reference. "One, we're the same age." She reminds him, pointing between them. "And secondly, I wouldn't dream of it." She sighs, a picture of innocence.

He smirks, licking his bottom lip in a way that makes her groin stir with intent.

An alarm bell sounds, cutting their moment cleanly in two, as he spins on one heel, his attention militant, as he bends down to the oven, grasping a tea towel that laid to rest alongside the hob. He opens the door, pulling out two succulent looking pork medallions.

Donna watches with interest, as he follows a collection of tasks, from straining the pasta, to laying the pieces of pork onto a plate, before gradually pouring the pasta into the sauce, saturating each little piece in red liquid, lifting a tantalising foray of smells and inevitable tastes into the air around them.

She follows him to the dinner table with her empty glass, as he sets the two plates down.

" _Ladies first_ ," He offers, gesturing for her to take a seat.

She wants to rib him for his attentiveness, for his thoughtfulness, and probably the first time in a long time where he has done something for her other than get her ass out of hot water. But she knows that this is the natural order of things, in any other normally blossoming relationship, and that if she objectifies the moment - as her critical mind is likely to do - then it will add an unnatural tone to the air that could ruin any progress that they've made.

So she sits, silently, and willingly, watching as he brings cutlery and the bottle, setting it down on the table before handing her a knife and fork. When she takes hers, he pours another measure in both of their glasses to accompany their meal.

"This looks...amazing." She says, observing him as he takes a seat next to her. "And it smells amazing." She notes.

"You like pork, right?" He asks, almost checking.

"I think you know that I _love_ Pork. You remember Per Se?" She reminds him. "With that Mango Salsa?"

"Yeah," He smirks, cutting up his meat. "I never did get to properly try that, did I?" He accuses playfully, his face dead panned.

"I left the Salsa?" She reminds him, her eyes defensively wide.

"Oh. _My Mistake_ ," He quips, the tightness of a smirk restricting his food, as he pops a piece of pork into his mouth.

"You're kind...with me." She observes, a tenderness reaching her eyes and voice, that seems to give him pause. He looks to her, his knife and fork lowering back onto the plate.

" _Only_ _with you_ ," He notes, his eyes catching with hers in a way that fixes her every move.

It's a moment that sends the blood rushing to her cheeks, and her mouth to go a little dry.

 _She wonders if this is going to happen every time he says something vaguely romantic._

" _Eat your Pork, Casanova_." She orders a tentative harshness about her as she points to his plate with her fork.

He chuckles then, shaking his head at her obtuseness, as they begin to wade into a comfortable silence.

Eating together, and being together.

 _Just the two of them, finally shutting out the world._

…. ...

 _ **Too easy**_

 _ **All I ever need**_

 _ **Too cold**_

 _ **You'll be all I ever need**_

 _ **Are you mad about me? (All I ever need)**_

 _ **Or do you see a fool?**_

 _ **To me you're just the girl (you know that I)**_

 _ **Tell me (all I ever)**_

 _ **If it's starting baby**_

 _ **All I ever need**_

'Julia' by Jungle

. . ….

After dinner, they gravitate towards the couch, the bottle of wine drained and replaced with Whiskey - one of Harvey's newest purchases - something older and more expensive than he keeps in his office, of a range that boasts only one hundred and eighty bottles sold worldwide.

Donna is full, and slightly drunk and their dual tiredness has put a slight slump in their seduction techniques as a pair.

Her head slides further against his shoulder, as his hand wraps around her waist to support her.

"It's official. We... _suck_ at this." She sighs, listening to the smooth sound of Miles Davis that fills the air.

"And I'll wager that at this point... _that's_ not even an option." He adds, cheekily, hearing her smile against him, a laugh falling out at his bold admission. "And _yet_ -" He adds.

"I _would have_ , you know? if you'd have...at least, offered." She notes, a sliver of accusation in her hazy gaze.

"I _would have_ offered." He notes. "But I was hungry…and now I'm a little," He pauses, sighing with a regret.

"Tired?" She smiles to herself. "Me too." She admits with a rather painful, food restricting sigh.

"Yes? But, why are we both _so_ …"

"It's been a long _long_ week, Harvey." She reminds him, patting his upper arm.

"Well….You got that right." He sighs heavily.

" _Hmmm_." She agrees, her low voice vibrating through both of them in a way that makes her eyes slip closed for a moment or two.

"I wanted this...you know...t _he other night_." He divulges, his voice, although soft, growing out of their silence.

"When we drank together?" She asks, bending to meet his eyes, suddenly wakefulness taking shape.

Her action catches him off guard, as he leans back slightly, her pupils widening at her face, slightly obscured by her shoulder, yet still capable to looking him square in the eye.

"Yes." He says, plainly, a growing distraction in his mind.

"Then why didn't you…" She frowns.

"What can I say," He smiles lopsidedly, his eyes becoming unfocused as he regards her. "I was a chickenshit." He mumbles.

She nods, taking in ever little bit of intention that his words offer.

"You know….just for...future reference...unless I'm angry at you, I'm probably _incapable_ of ever saying no to you…" She divulges.

"You've said that before." He says, now drawn to her like a flame.

"Yes. I have." She confirms, her voice gentle and quiet and so unlike the Donna Paulsen that he thought he knew.

"I didn't...understand what that meant. _Back then_?"

"I know." She nods, a seriousness in the edges of her features.

"I'm starting to understand, now." He says, his fingers tightening around her waist.

"Good." She nods, breathing in a breath to still herself.

It's happening again. That rush. That push and pull. That wonderful rebirth that their connection harnesses. She watches as he pouts, before his mouth hangs open, deliberately aware of their blurring lines and all the expectations that are beginning to mount up..

"Okay, I'm officially tired now." He says, rubbing at his eyes.

His hesitation, like cold meat to a scolding hot pan, causes hers to rear its ugly head.

"Okay, time for me to go." She says, a strain in her voice at having to get up from such a withered state. She sighs, moving out of his arms as she pads over to her bag, still on the breakfast stool. She pulls her phone out from her bag, noticing the 12:45 on the home screen. She sighs, a blanched yawn pulling at her mouth. She covers her hand over her face, looking down on the carpet, a loose attempt at locating her shoes.

"I uh… thought that...maybe you'd..stay?" He says, catching a pause in her moving form.

She swishes around to his now standing form, noticing the hopefulness in his eyes. "Harvey," She scolds tiredly. "I can barely keep my eyes open. The chances of us being able to-"

"I'm not propositioning you, Donna." He cuts her off, his voice curt but softening quickly. He shrugs. "It's late. Just...sleep here. We could... _sleep_...together." He offers, his jaw twitching.

She blinks, frowning tiredly. "You want to... _sleep_...next to me?" She checks.

"Well, that's what two people who are too tired for sex usually do." He shrugs.

"And you sure not gonna...feel me up in the process?" She asks, her eyes narrowing.

"Well, _I didn't say that_." He counters, taking a step towards her. "What is a little carefree touching," He says, steadily closing the distance. "Between people who are…"

" _More_ than friends?" She offers, his rather adorable behaviour bending her resolve clean in half.

Some things are simply fact.

"Yeah?" He offers, a strange surprise on his face, something that breeds hopefulness and a youth to soften his features by a decade. "Like... _Best Friends?_ " He offers.

"Perhaps," She says, smirking at the way his hands encircle his waist with a confidence, pulling her into his embrace. "Perhaps...more than."

"How much more, than best frie-"

" _ **Take me to bed, Harvey**_." She cuts him off, a finger sliding across his lips .

"If you insist." He smirks, taking her hand in his.

Her face is aching with such smile that not even his expert kissing can lessen the feeling.

 _Donna Paulsen is in love with a very rare creature, indeed._

. . ...

 _ **I feel alive in the sunlight**_

 _ **All my fears are only real life**_

 _ **Yeah, I feel alive in the sunlight now**_

 _ **Two whole years on the rewrite**_

 _ **Tell my friends I'm gonna be right there**_

'House in LA' By Jungle

. . . ..

Notes: I will definitely write Rachel and Mike in the next one. Got a little away from me there! As always please feed the kitty!


End file.
